This thesis offers a detailed exploration of a course, the students and myself as one of
their tutors. In that sense it deals with a world which is familiar to those who work and
learn in university teacher training contexts - the world of continuous professional
development for teachers linked to courses which can be loosely described as practitioner
research, reflective practice and/or as action research. Within this context the thesis is
about considering the ways that relationships between teachers and pupils are articulated.
Constructions of practices and the identities that inhabit them are discussed in the thesis
reflecting the processes that operate during sessions of the MA in Teaching, a
professional development course particularly concerned with facilitating experienced
teachers to explore their own practice.
The thesis is therefore primarily about a course, about teacher talk and about my
continuous attempts to offer insights into these areas of social construction whilst
acknowledging my continued presence both in the accounts of the course and this
writing.
At one level the thesis is concerned with analysing teachers as learners interactions and
the way that their talk is accessed and shared and insights developed. At another level
however, the research and methodological paradigms that have been developed are
significantly different from a classic ethnographic approach in several respects. First the
study is concerned with the ways that language impacts and constructs identities relating
the constructions directly to the talk that teachers, as students, are engaged in on the
course. The thesis also examines the ways that power dynamics are represented in
teacher's talk considering their operations through relations of social difference (understood as a complex interweaving of various social categories) and the ways that
this may impact on a broader spectrum of identities to be found within educational
contexts.
The thesis considers that, whilst often representing a supposed and somewhat superficial,
homogeneity, MA students and their tutors are also represented by social differences of
one kind or another, sometimes in common and sometimes at odds with those that they
teach.
At yet another level the thesis is concerned with the narratives shared by teachers as
students involved in a process of professional development and how they are able to be
challenging whilst at the same time supportive. The thesis therefore considers the ways
that teacher narratives offer accounts that reflect both professional and personal ways of
behaving.
The thesis focuses on what are best described as narratives of practice as represented by
teachers on the course. These narratives of practice therefore constitute one of several key
ideas that permeate the thesis. The narratives shared on the course are dynamic and
involved in constant reconstruction through the impact of course processes which
promote critical questioning. The narrative is important as a vehicle for the continuing
construction and development of discourse(s) that reflect and develop connections to
cultural perspectives for teachers experiencing the course.
The student narratives are concerned with the constructions of their daily practices not
only as a set of developmental and historical reflections but also as a cyclical discourse
where students might anticipate future practices. In this regard the course offers not
simply a reflective model to students but also a reflexive one where students are involved in actively considering themselves and their actions as constructions/constructors of
practice influenced by factors such as experience, situation and context and the language
that connects these positions.
The thesis discusses practice as constituted through a discourse that is partly historical,
experiential, speculative, expressive and textual. This discourse is explored in the thesis
as preparing students for the participation in a model of reflexive practice that is
concerned with their intellectual, academic and practical involvement in a process of
actively exploring their sense of 'becoming'. In this form of continuing analysis the
student is constantly engaged in appreciating the complexity present within any
construction from practice as part of a process that privileges a continuing engagement
with detailed concerns with the intention of developing and improving future professional
practices.
The thesis constructs a paradigm that sways rather like a rope bridge between general
modem concerns and more specific post-modem ones. This 'bridging' strategy promotes
a flexible solution to constructing identities and promotes representations of both
commonality and difference. This approach attempts to be both distinctive and creative
by developing a theoretical investigation that strives to recognise the complexities present
within practice narratives and develop insights into both individualities and commonalties
represented there.
The research considers the influence of social, institutional and interactional relationships
constructed through narratives and treated as data that reflect the practices of teachers in
their roles as students on the course. The research raises important questions about the
discourses that constitute those in education and the impact that they may have on them.It identifies power concerns and applies an analytical framework to the data to reveal a
complex model of shifting discourses and practices.
The thesis therefore is concerned with the ways that teachers socially construct their
relationships with themselves and others from both inside and outside the institutional
context. Inevitably the thesis is therefore itself a construction which brings to bear my
personal and professional interests to attempt to understand narrative practices of M.A
students. Traditional PhD claims to 'originally contributing to knowledge' maybe more
difficult to sustain in these critical times, but it is clear that the thesis does help to develop
insights into what is the professional experience of many teachers and their tutors - that
of being engaged in the courses which purport to be experientially based. What this
thesis achieves therefore is to cast light on to what is taking place within such experience
based discourses. The outcomes include epistemological and ontological understandings
but also and by no means least, some indications of how teacher education courses might
be further developed.